PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has decided in principle to start double shifts in public sector schools of the province.
This was decided at a meeting of the Elementary and Secondary Education Department held on Monday with Chief Minister Mahmood Khan in the chair.
The meeting was given a briefing about the commencement of double shifts in schools, transfer of teachers under the E-transfer policy and other matters of the department. The meeting was informed that a comprehensive policy for double shifts in schools had been prepared in consultation with law and establishment departments whereas a committee headed by the provincial minister for education has been constituted to implement the policy.
“Double shifts will be started in public sector schools only on need basis, and a criterion to determine the need of any school has been incorporated in the policy,” the meeting was informed.
Teachers of the same school where double shift is to be started would be given first priority for teaching, and if a teacher is not available for the second shift in a school, then teachers would be hired from a nearby school. During the meeting, a stipend structure for the teachers of second shift was also approved.
Briefing about the E-transfers policy, the meeting was told that transfer of teachers would be made once in a year as per the academic year so that educational activities of the student is not affected. Transfer of teachers from BPS-12 to BPS-18 would be made under the policy as per the predefined criteria.
The meeting decided to devolve the posting transfer powers of grade 19 and 20 teaching cadre staff of the department to the lower level. About the progress on the provision of missing facilities of public sector schools, the forum was apprised that since the financial year 2013-14, provision of missing facilities including clean drinking water, electricity, wash rooms and boundary walls had been completed in 68% of the total schools which represents 21385 number of schools adding that work on the provision of missing facilities in rest of schools is in progress.
The chief minister directed the education department to complete the provision of missing facilities in remaining schools. Matters related to decentralized procurement system for the purchase of furniture for government schools also came under discussion and the chief minister directed the concerned quarters to come up with feasible proposals after reviewing all the aspects of the matter.
The meeting was informed that as per the directives of the provincial cabinet, 850 clerical staff of the department working on the same post had been transferred whereas 1,400 more were being transferred.
Stressing the need for introducing a uniform examination system in all the education boards, the chief minister directed the department to work out a plan to this effect. He also directed the concerned quarters to fill all the vacancies in all the education boards without any further delay and to start work on the installation of CCTV cameras in all the examination halls.